Bank of America ordered to pay $2.2 million to black Charlotte job seekers

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Bank of America ordered to pay $2.2 million to black Charlotte job seekers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bank of America has been ordered to pay $2.2 million to more than a thousand black job applicants turned down for jobs in Charlotte after a federal judge ruled that the bank racially discriminated against them, according to The Charlotte Observer.

The bank had allegedly turned down qualified black candidates for teller jobs, and entry-level clerical and administrative positions in 1993 and between 2002 and 2005.

A judge ruled Bank of America used “unfair and inconsistent selection criteria” in turning them down.

The U.S. Labor Department filed its first complaint against the bank in 1997. The department said Bank of America had challenged its authority to pursue the case.

“Wherever doors of opportunity are unfairly closed to workers, we will be there to open them — no matter how long it takes,” said the labor department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Director Patricia A. Shiu, said in a statement to the paper.